>That said, don't ever use an ISP provided access point.
Because the hardware is often inferior to what you can pick up for ~$200 at a tech store, not to mention the lack of control you get with an ISP AP.
Because the hardware is often inferior to what you can pick up for ~$200 at a tech store, not to mention the lack of control you get with an ISP AP.
"lack of control": The Comcast provided hardware gives me an IP via DHCP and I'm able to disable all those useless firewall features. So which features am I missing and why should I care about them?
I can't use an AP that does not allow me to fine-tune QoS and just tinker in general if packets are not flowing in the way that I desire.
(not that my internet connection is always great - it isn't - but that lies with my internet provider, who I have no choice over, so...)
I think there are a lot of smart people on HN, but that doesn't mean they're all interested in all the same things. Tweaking wifi settings just seems like a waste of time to me, and boring to top it off. My interaction with my AP stopped at setting the ssid and passphrase.
Even if you aren't going to be hacking on your router much, it still definitely pays to ensure you're using hackable hardware.
This seems to contradict itself - how does it pay if you're not going to be hacking?
The commercial vendors do an absolutely horrible job of supporting or maintaining their products and they tend to get a lot wrong with the initial software release. The OpenWRT community does a great job of putting out a solid product that works and has sensible defaults, but you can only get the full benefit of their work if you buy hardware that is open to their hacking.
- fast enough to run Netflix and have a work VPN going at the same time
- fast enough to run Netflix, download something on Steam, and have a work VPN going at the same time
- fast enough to run Netflix, download something on Steam, have Dropbox sync multiple GB to a new computer, and have a work VPN going at the same time
But times have changed: On my old ADSL line QoS made a huge difference due to congestion (and the large buffer sizes). SSH was nearly unusable while uploading a file. My current Comcast line is so fast that I don't experience any issues due to congestion - so how would I benefit from QoS?
Another difference is that in the past consumer-level hardware was just unreliable: I remember an old Netgear router that just crashed if there were too many concurrent TCP connections, as its NAT table would overflow. I haven't seen those issues in a long time now.
Are you sure you don't have a few hundred milliseconds of bufferbloat in your cable modem, as is the case for almost all modems out there?
This argument has a place here, but it has a cringe effect each time I see it. I find it a dangerous one if applied to other circumstances.
http://paste.click/QEYrXr (Note the uid/gid)